This town with the bumper stickers

If you're like me, you loathe doing meal prep every week and often end up making food choices that are bad for your health or expensive because you once again neglected to keep your stash of fridge food going. And so maybe you have come to the conclusion it would be better to pay somebody else to do the prep so you always have tasty meals ready for you. I did some research on local places that do this, sharing this in hopes that somebody else finds it useful. If anybody has experience with these places or other places they suggest, I'd love to hear about them.

Prices shown are approximate. Note that I am using "serving" like the USDA uses it. A chipotle burrito, for reference, is around two "servings".

Ivys Cooking ($6-$15/serving, free delivery, minimum spend $14) http://www.ivyscookin.com

Pickup weekly (Wed) or get free delivery (Thurs), “home-cooked meal” vibe but still very professional. Minimum order of one meal (two servings). Great vegetarian options. Also offers additional "product boxes" you can add to your order for $10 and some items like jam, jellies, etc.

$28 for Entree of 2-4 generous servings ($7-$14/serving)

$38 Family Size (4-6 servings) - $38 ($6-$10/serving)

Sprout Kitchen (willamette and 25th) sprout-kitchen.com ($6.50/serving, minimum spend $13)

New restaurant w/ meal plan option focus on modern/gourmet. Each meal is around 2 servings. $13 each so $6.50 per serving. While food has some focus on being healthy, surprisingly no vegan or vegetarian options when I looked. Pickup weekly.

Glenwood Restaurant (25th and Willamette) ($5.25/serving, $21 minimum spend) https://www.glenwoodrestaurants.com/

Choose from one of two meal combos each week, with vegetarian option available.

$21 and designed to ‘feed a family of four’ so let’s assume that’s $5.25/serving.

Chipotle Catering (several locations) ($4.50/serving, minimum spend $90)

Thought I'd consider this one as well for fun. Good veggie options. $8.50/burrito if you order 10. Each burrito is two servings. So that’s 4.50 per serving. Or you can order a bunch of ingredients and put them on tortillas of your choice (taco or burrito). This is $12.00 “per person”, which I’m going to assume is two servings, so $6/serving. Minimum order is a $90-$120 depending on which boxes you get. Of course, a single burrito is $9.85 so you're not really saving much with their catering options. With some creative use of gift cards you could probably get yourself a 10-20% discount here as well.

Honorable mention:
Erin’s table (local meal kit service) https://www.erins-table.com/faq

This bill has passed the US house with rare bipartisan support and is now headed for the senate.

Axios article about the bill:

https://www.axios.com/2024/05/22/crypto-legislation-fit21-house-passes

Some other relevant background info:
https://www.dlnews.com/articles/regulation/us-house-passes-sweeping-crypto-fit21-bill/

Vote record if you want to look up your rep:
https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2024226

Among other things, the bill establishes:

• Clear ways to determine if a crypto asset is a security or not, and a process for making that determination. If a crypto is a security, it is subject to many more regulations and laws which are needed to protect investors.
• Clear ways to determine is a crypto exchange is actually an exchange, money transmitter, or other entity subject to regulation and what those regulations are
• Which federal agency even has jurisdiction over crypto assets
• That sufficiently decentralized cryptos (like Bitcoin) are exempt from many securities regulations. This is because a decentralized cryptocurrency can't rugpull you or otherwise collude to harm whatever investments one has made in them. When you think about bad crypto scandals like FTX, exchange collapses, and other rug pulls, they are all a result of centralized actors taking advantage of the trust of others. Decentralized, trustless systems like Bitcoin do not have this flaw as one does not need to trust a select set of centralized actors to faithfully and transparently administer the system. There is no single entity or set of entities, for example, who can make new Bitcoin which is not meant to be minted according to the Bitcoin protocol or force the transfer of funds from one user to another.
• Likewise would exempt "decentralized exchanges" from securities regulations as there is no trusted centralized intermediary who can rugpull investors. One might use a decentralized exchange, for example, to swap BTC to ETH or another cryptocurrency. They are fast, transparent, and efficient.

Lane County has an excellent portal to parcel maps and property owner data. Visualizing this data at a higher level reveals interesting features wrt land use and ownership.

Interactive maps and tables are here.

County map, by property class (3484×1729, 703kB):

County map, identifying out-of-state land owners by classifying by region/state (3484×1729, 741kB):

Large map, Springfield-Eugene area, by property class, without legend (5000×2728, 2.7MB):

Land use, in aggregate:

Owner location, in aggregate:

Owner location, in detail:

Top 1000 owners, by..., cropped:

remember to vote

eugene gets some good ones

lol wtf

First one in town I've seen.

Bunch of Rivians around but not these yet.

Bill name: Antisemitic Awareness Act

Current status: Passed house, awaiting vote in Senate

Good explainer by US news https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2024-05-07/explainer-the-controversy-surrounding-the-antisemitism-bill

Article about 700 Jewish professors who opposed the bill https://thehill.com/homenews/education/4651826-jewish-professors-biden-antisemitism-legislation/

ACLU statement against bill: https://www.aclu.org/documents/aclu-urges-congress-to-oppose-anti-semitism-awareness-act

Vote tally: https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2024172

If you feel passionately about this bill, contact Eugene's senators and Joe Biden who will have the final say if it passes the senate:

Jeff Merkeley (202) 224-3753

Ron Wyden (202) 224-5244

Joe Biden (202) 456-1111

dont actually know what a swale is, but it's a funny sounding word I saw on the freeway, and this is definitely camas

Got this response when I emailed her about it. I have not been a fan of all of her votes, but I appreciate this one. Most of OR's reps voted for this bill https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/202486

Thank you for contacting me about H.R. 7521, the so-called “Protecting Americans from Foreign adversaries Act.” I appreciate hearing from you.

On Wednesday, March 13, I voted in opposition to H.R. 7521. This bill would force the sale of the social media application TikTok, whose parent company ByteDance is based in China.

Let me be clear: I share the national security concerns of many that the Chinese government is collecting Americans’ personal data via TikTok. However, I believe H.R. 7521 is an inadequate proposal that unconstitutionally singles out a specific company, setting a dangerous precedent. Additionally, by restricting access to a social media application, I believe this bill threatens Americans’ constitutional rights to free speech, expression and a free press.

I also believe the bill’s provisions to force ByteDance to divest from TikTok within 180 days are unrealistic. In reality, a sale of this magnitude could trigger an antitrust acquisition review in the United States – a process that could take up to a year or longer. During this period, TikTok users in the U.S. could lose access to the app.

This bill also ignores the fact that the Chinese government and other public and private entities around the world – including the U.S. government – are still able to purchase Americans’ private information from third-party brokers. That’s why I support comprehensive privacy reforms to protect Americans’ constitutional right to privacy and close the data broker loophole.

The United States has rightfully criticized other countries for infringing on the rights of their own citizens by restricting free speech and censoring access to the internet. However, H.R. 7521’s restriction of Americans’ free speech and singling out of one company makes us no better than our adversaries, and it invites reciprocal attacks from other countries on U.S.-based companies.

We must not forget that the U.S. government also engages in what I strongly believe to be unconstitutional surveillance and collection of Americans’ personal data and communications. If TikTok were sold to a U.S.-based company, I’m not convinced that American users’ private data would be secure.

Instead of rushing a vote on a bill that was written behind closed doors without proper debate, Congress should pass comprehensive data privacy and security reform legislation that protects Americans from unconstitutional data collection by all companies, governments, and digital applications - not just one.

​

Izakaya Meiji is Izakaya Meiji again.

I never tried Junglefowl. Did anyone else?

Conrad has secured a huge amount of aid for his district (HD12). But he also supported HB2002 (the abortion/gender care access bill) and the state party ditzes are mad about it.

Looking into his stances and voting history he seems super level headed. Since the district is likely to go Republican regardless, he should be supported over the other party-line man.

This really takes the cake

Seems kind of an own-goal, isn't it?

Are you tired of voting for the "lesser of two evils"? Wish you had a say in who you got to vote for? Well you can, if you vote in the primaries! Primary elections determine who will be on the ballot in the general election. If you want to vote in the primaries for a party, you must select that party on your voter registration. You can update your voter registration online.

The next statewide primary election is May 21, which means you need to register and select a party by May 1 to participate in a closed primary. The sooner you register, the better off you will be.

What positions can you vote on in primaries?

• President
• Governor
• Attorney General
• Secretary of State
• Treasurer
• State Legislators
• Federal legislators (house and senate)

Voting is one important way you can be politically active. There are many other ways as well. I hope you explore all your options and engage politically. Our political process has flaws, it's easy to look at things and think they are hopeless. But remember that apathy has never worked as a strategy to change anything for the better and probably never will :).

But you do you